????社交網(wǎng)站Facebook有兩張面孔：一張是時髦且富有遠(yuǎn)見、志在改變世界的創(chuàng)新者；另一張則是單調(diào)乏味技術(shù)專家式加埋頭苦干的賺錢機器。

????我們先來看看Facebook的后一張面孔。上周三，該公司公布了全年營收，不論以何種標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來衡量，其業(yè)績都相當(dāng)不錯。2014年，F(xiàn)acebook的營收增長58％，達(dá)到125億美元，主要來自移動端廣告銷售。Facebook2014年凈利潤將近30億美元。截至去年12月，每天有近9億人使用Facebook。

????除非你對復(fù)雜難懂的廣告技術(shù)非常感興趣，否則，F(xiàn)acebook的盈利模式聽起來相當(dāng)無趣。聽人討論其財務(wù)業(yè)績，簡直好比在泥地里強行推進(jìn)，令人痛苦不堪，耳邊充斥著各種術(shù)語：有機曝光次數(shù)、廣告投放率遞增速度、右側(cè)欄，凡此種種，不一而足。談到Facebook希望成為軟件開發(fā)者很好的合作伙伴，公司創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官馬克?扎克伯格稱，F(xiàn)acebook正努力建設(shè)“跨平臺平臺”。Facebook首席運營官謝麗爾?桑德伯格插話道：“我們的最終目標(biāo)，是成為客戶的關(guān)鍵商業(yè)伙伴。”

????這種話或許令人大打哈欠，但卻富有感染力。Facebook目前近70％的收入來自移動設(shè)備端，而就在短短幾年前，移動端收入幾乎為零。相較于其高速增長，F(xiàn)acebook臺式電腦端廣告營收的增速僅1%，不由得令人震驚。值得一提的是，就在不久前，F(xiàn)acebook幾乎全部收入都來自電腦端廣告。Facebook當(dāng)前資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表上的現(xiàn)金規(guī)模幾乎可媲美其2014全年營收：截至2014年底，該公司坐擁112億美元現(xiàn)金。

????等等，除了高效的移動廣告單元外，F(xiàn)acebook不是還有個要使世界變得更安全的愿景嗎？

????沒錯，扎克伯格做了件在投資者收益電話會議上極為罕見的事：他分享了Facebook的三年、五年以及十年愿景。其三年愿景包括，為人們以及（最重要的是）企業(yè)提供更好的服務(wù)，同時使Facebook的“社區(qū)”不斷發(fā)展。五年計劃是使WhatsApp和Messenger兩款應(yīng)用分別實現(xiàn)商業(yè)化。十年計劃則包括：使全球所有人都能連上互聯(lián)網(wǎng)（通過扎克伯格的Internet.org項目），并使他們進(jìn)入Facebook收購的Oculus VR創(chuàng)造的虛擬現(xiàn)實世界。

????這樣的愿景，只有擁有海量用戶、日進(jìn)斗金的公司才敢有。

????收益電話會議接近尾聲時，有一位投資者問扎克伯格，斥巨資幫助那些不能給Facebook帶來足夠收入的客戶接入互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，以至于收不回本，這樣做是否合理？該分析師問道，這同投資者有什么關(guān)系？扎克伯格的回答，很好地概括了他對Facebook的想法。他說道：“對于我們想要吸引的投資者來說，這一點很重要，因為我們是一家專注于使命的企業(yè)。你提的問題的潛臺詞是，如果我們只關(guān)心賺錢，我們會專注于在美國賣出更多廣告。但我們并不僅關(guān)心賺錢。”

????不過，F(xiàn)acebook肯定有琢磨賺錢的事。確實，當(dāng)你大賺特賺時，你可以想些有創(chuàng)意的方式來賺更多的錢，哪怕回報要很久以后才能看到。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：Hunter

????審稿：Sissi

????Facebook is really two companies for the price of one: A really nifty, visionary, we’re-going-to-change-the-world innovator and a mind-numbingly technocratic/grind-it-out money-making machine.

????Let’s take the second first. The company reported full-year earnings Wednesday, and by any measure Facebook is an impressive business. Largely by selling ads that run on cell phones, Facebook’s 2014 revenue increased 58% to $12.5 billion. The company earned almost $3 billion. Nearly 900 million people used Facebook daily during December.

????Unless your exceedingly interested in the intricacies of advertising technology, there’s almost nothing interesting about how Facebook makes money. Listening to a discussion of its financial results is a forced march through the muddy fields of organic impressions, increasing velocity of advertising efficiency, right-hand rails, and the like. In discussing Facebook’s desire to be a good partner to software developers, Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to the company’s efforts at building a “cross-platform platform.” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, piped in that “our ultimate goal is to be the critical business partner to our clients.”

????Yawn-inducing, perhaps, but powerful too. Facebook now gets nearly 70% of its revenue from mobile devices, up from nothing a few short years ago. Considering its rapid growth, it is astounding that revenue from ads that run on desktop computers re only growing at a 1% clip for Facebook. It’s worth repeating: Not very long ago desktop ads were all that Facebook had. Facebook also has a balance sheet nearly as big as its 2014 revenues: It ended the year with $11.2 billion in cash.

????But wait, wasn’t there something about a vision and making the world safe for something other than efficient mobile ad units?

????Indeed. Zuckerberg did something unique for an investor earnings call: He shared a three-, five-, and 10-year vision for his company. The three-year vision includes creating better services for people and, critically, businesses while growing Facebook’s “community.” The five-year plan envisions making businesses of WhatsApp and Messenger, an acquisition and a separate messaging app, respectively. The 10-year plan involves Zuckerberg’s goal of helping every person in the world obtain an Internet connection (through his Internet.org project) and then plopping them down into a virtual-reality world stemming from Facebook’s Oculus VR purchase.

????It’s the kind of stuff that only a company that’s printing money from its gigantic audience can afford to think about.

????Toward the end of the earnings call an investor asked Zuckerberg if it made sense to spending so much money to provide Internet connections to customers who wouldn’t generate sufficient revenue for Facebook to recoup the investment. Why, the analyst asked, does this matter to investors? Zuckerberg’s response neatly summed up his thinking about Facebook. “It matters to the kind of investors that we want to have because we’re a mission-focused company,” Zuckerberg said. “Part of the sub-text of your question is that if we were only focused on making money we’d simply focus on selling more ads in the U.S. But that’s not the only thing we think about here.”

????At Facebook FB 0.61% , they certainly think about making money. Indeed, when you make so much of it you also can think about creative ways to make even more, even if the payout is way off into the future.